Visit Wilderness
Search for a wilderness as the destination for your next outdoor adventure.

Why Visit Wilderness?
Learn more about the diverse ways in which we benefit from wilderness and threats wilderness areas face today.
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Search for a wilderness as the destination for your next outdoor adventure.

While wilderness can be appreciated from afar—through online content, television, or books—nothing compares to experiencing it firsthand. Activities like camping, hiking, or hunting allow you to fully enjoy the recreational, ecological, spiritual, and health benefits that wilderness areas offer. These areas provide “outstanding opportunities for solitude or a primitive and unconfined type of recreation,” chances to observe wildlife, moments to renew and refresh, and the physical benefits of outdoor exercise. In many wilderness areas, you can even bring your well-behaved dog.
Learn more about the diverse ways in which we benefit from wilderness and threats wilderness areas face today.
Intricately carved and scenically splendid White Canyon runs north-south through the middle of this Wilderness.
Narrow in places, this canyon's walls rise as much as 800 feet above the bottom. Throughout you'll find delicate, eroded formations and numerous side canyons. Sand, slickrock, and sporatic willows cover the canyon's bottom.
The Rincon, an enormous, amphitheater-like escarpment, stands near the southern boundary.
Set in the rugged southeast portion of the Mineral Mountains, this Wilderness features a variety of vegetation from saguaro cacti to chaparral.
When rainstorms flood the area, especially during summer "monsoons," waterfalls pour over the rim of White Canyon, or form quiet pools within sculpted terraces.
Wildlife includes a myriad of birds. Black bears and mountain lions are permanent residents.
How to follow the seven standard Leave No Trace principles differs in different parts of the country (desert vs. Rocky Mountains). Click on any of the principles listed below to learn more about how they apply in the White Canyon Wilderness.
For more information on Leave No Trace, Visit the Leave No Trace, Inc. website.
Digital and paper maps are critical tools for wilderness visitors. Online maps can help you plan and prepare for your visit ahead of time. You can also carry digital maps with you on your GPS unit or other handheld GPS device. Having a paper map with you in the backcountry, as well as solid orienteering skills, however, ensures that you can still route-find in the event that your electronic device fails.
Motorized equipment and equipment used for mechanical transport is generally prohibited in all wilderness areas. This includes the use of motor vehicles, motorboats, motorized equipment, bicycles, hang gliders, wagons, carts, portage wheels, and the landing of aircraft including helicopters.
Date: November 28, 1990
Acreage: 5,800 acres
Arizona Desert Wilderness Act of 1990 - Public law 101-628 (11/28/1990) To provide for the designation of certain public lands as wilderness in the State of Arizona
For more information (To download or see all affected wilderness areas) visit our law library for 101-628 or special provisions for 101-628 or legislative history for 101-628 for this law.
People who volunteer their time to steward our wilderness areas are an essential part of wilderness management. Contact the following groups to inquire about volunteer opportunities. Groups are listed alphabetically by the state(s) in which the wilderness is located.